The cashier hesitated and glanced at Laverick.
“Nothing much,” Laverick answered. “We should have liked to have asked him a question—that is all.”
Bellamy came out from the hotel and paused to light a cigarette.
“How are you, Laverick?” he said quietly. “Nothing the matter, I hope?”
“Nothing worth mentioning,” Laverick replied.
The cashier returned to his duties. The two men were alone. Bellamy, most carefully dressed, with his silver-headed cane under his arm, and his silk hat at precisely the correct angle, seemed very far removed from the work of intrigue into which Laverick felt himself to have blundered. He looked down for a moment at the tips of his patent shoes and up again at the sky, as though anxious about the weather.
“What about a drink, Laverick?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Delighted!” Laverick assented.
CHAPTER XXXI
MISS LENEVEU’S MESSAGE
The two men stepped back into the hotel. The cashier had returned to his desk, and the incident which had just transpired seemed to have passed unnoticed. Nevertheless, Laverick felt that the studied indifference of his companion’s manner had its significance, and he endeavored to imitate it.